


my turn to be the victim

by goldfynches



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anal Sex, Bottom Charles, Clothed Sex, Emotional Baggage, Implied/Referenced Incest, Introspection, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Oral Sex, Top Francis, Topping from the Bottom, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:07:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22319116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldfynches/pseuds/goldfynches
Summary: it's like he wants it to hurt. i wonder why he thinks he needs to make any extra effort when he'll wake tomorrow, blurred memories gnawing at him, refusing to look at me when he mentions being completely blacked out last night.
Relationships: Francis Abernathy/Charles Macaulay, Referenced Charles/Camilla
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	my turn to be the victim

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [my turn to be the victim](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22585678) by [Rosy_Warner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosy_Warner/pseuds/Rosy_Warner)



> title from the driver by bastille.
> 
> from francis' point of view.
> 
> comments and kudos are always appreciated.

It’s whiskey laying heavy on my tongue, and the scent of cigarette smoke so strong it makes my eyes water. Because I’m not crying. Charles Macaulay has never made me cry, and I refuse to start now. It’s far off, smouldering, forgotten, in the ashtray on the side table, but it’s all I can smell, because I refuse to focus on the sharp undercut of his aftershave. Always that fucking aftershave, he’s never changed it the whole time I’ve known him. Catching scent of it elsewhere always makes me double take.

His mouth is on mine, wet, hot, insistent, like a man gasping for breath. He murmurs something between kisses, something I let go over my head, because anything he says now isn’t for me to hear. It belongs to whomever he imagines in my place. I am just a stand in. I am just what’s convenient. The thought is ugly, a handful of salt rubbed into the wound he opened the first time he crawled to me, drunk out of his mind and needing _something_. For a while, I let myself think it was me that he needed. Being needed felt like fire, warm and alive, flickering in me. And I would ignore that splash of gasoline, every time he said someone else’s name into the distance between us.

I slip my hands up under his shirt, digging my nails into his chest to hear that gasp that fulfils that petty need in me to hurt him back. His skin is warm under my palms.

“Take it off.” He whispers. He’s breathless, needy.

I consider. I tug from the inside, popping off the buttons, sending them skittering across the wood floor. Stitching buttons back on isn’t far from his skill level, but I know I’ll never hear the end of it when he wakes up sober and bitchy. It’s still worth it.

He’s trying to kiss me again, but I press my lips against his neck, scraping my teeth against his skin. I’m breathing him in, aftershave and hot breath replacing my oxygen. I hate that this still makes me lightheaded with want. It always does, as much as I try to ignore it. It makes my breath catch in my throat - golden hair in the dim lamplight, his fingertips with all their callouses from his unwieldy grip on his pen, eyelashes dark against his pale skin.

“Francis…” It’s a soft whine, something I’m meant to hear for once, and it sends a thrill down my spine. He never says my name.

“Go on. Go to my room.” I place a hand on the small of his back, pulling him in for a kiss before I send him down the hall. He stumbles on the way there, tripping over the booze he had for dinner.

The room feels cold now that he’s left it, a chill that runs through me. I reach for the glass sat on the side table and knock it back. I don’t care what it is. It burns, and that’s all that matters. Glancing down at the glass in my hand, I have to bite back a chuckle. Scolding Charles for his drinking seems almost hypocritical now.

After a breath, I make the _hodos_ to my bedroom, and seeing Charles sat on my bed, clumsy fingers fumbling with his belt. He’s hard already. He hasn’t heard me come in, or if he has, he hasn’t looked up. Loosening my tie, I step further into the room, stopping once I’m between his legs. He tips his chin up, and his grey eyes look vacant. They’re not storm clouds, raging and twisting with his temper, they’re strangely clear.

Without a word, I sink down to my knees and bat his hands away from his belt. It slips out of the loops in his black trousers - the pair he’s been wearing for the past three days, the pair that are threadbare at the hem. I undo the buttons and gently tease my fingertips over the shape of his cock in his briefs. He isn’t speaking anymore, he’s just breathing, quick and shallow. He fists his hands in the sheets he’s sitting on.

I can’t look at him, not as I pull his briefs down and lean in to take him into my mouth. He inhales sharply, tightening his grip on the sheets. I know what he’ll be doing, lifting his head up, baring the slim column of his pale throat, lips barely parted as if he’s praying. The crucifix, forgotten around his neck, will glint to remind us of its presence - not that Charles is sober enough to engage in all that guilt.

It’ll kill me if I look up at him, but I barely feel alive here anyway. I know that all this will catch up with me, and hopefully it’ll kill me to spare him the extra effort. I’ll drop dead when I remember the face he makes when he finishes, a Botticelli angel turned erotic, when I remember the way he curls his legs around my waist, when I remember how his voice lilts when he pleads for more.

He whines quietly above me, jerks his hips a little, and that might be what kills me instead. His cock buried down my throat. What a way to go. I hope that he would stop when he noticed, that he cared at least that much. It doesn’t feel like it.

I pull up and wipe a hand across my chin, finally looking up at him. He looks almost wounded, offended that I dared to stop.

“Lay down.” I murmur, patting his thigh and getting to my feet.

I turn around. I don’t know if he’s looking at me, and I doubt it. He’ll be struggling with getting his clothes off, and getting his hands to cooperate. It’s always his hands that go first, starting to tremble, unless they’re wrapped around a bottle of his choosing. He can always pour the most even measures.

Sighing, I pull my tie off and turn back to face Charles. He’s thrown his shirt halfway across the room, and he hasn’t taken his trousers off. He isn’t looking at me - he’s on his stomach, face buried in one of my pillows. I can tell he’s still awake by the shallow rise and fall of his chest. It’s reassuring to know he won’t be looking at me.

“Charles. Nightstand drawer.” I tap his ankle to get his attention.

Blindly, he gropes the air beside the bed until it lands on the forgotten coffee cup and ashtray on the nightstand. He pulls the drawer open and pats around some more until he finds the bottle, holding it up like a spoil of war. I lean over the bed to take it from him, and his arm flops back onto the bed, all the resistance gone from him.

I get up on the bed, straddling his knees. If my weight is uncomfortable, he doesn’t comment. I run my fingers down his ribs, not that I can feel them through the lean flesh. He’s hot, almost feverish, under my touch, like always. He twitches at the touch. I dig my nails in instead, and he groans into the pillow. That comes as no surprise. I tug at the back of his trousers, dragging his underwear down with them.

One day, I’ll be able to turn him away. He’ll arrive at my door, stinking drunk, swaying on his feet, and I’ll say no, Charles, I’m not doing it tonight, and I will shut the door in his face. He’ll try and knock the blasted thing off its hinges if I do that. It will happen one day, so I’ve promised myself. It won’t be the next time, or the time after that, and it certainly isn't today. Not when I’m already slicking my fingers with the lube and shifting my weight a touch.

He swears, muffled in the down of the cushion, at the first finger. He’s always tight, refusing to relax as I’ve told him before, like he wants it to hurt. I wonder why he thinks he needs to make any extra effort when he’ll wake up tomorrow, blurred memories gnawing at him, refusing to look at me when he mentions being completely blacked out last night. I make myself think it’s simply him nursing his shattered ego, instead of him trying to hurt me in return.

It all feels like vivid deja vu. I’ve been here too many times before, a well-thumbed-through book that horrifies me just as much as it drives me to keep going. It’s always like this, the drink making Charles mellow enough to take whatever it is I’m willing to give him. It’s how I know he’s fucked, he’s gone too far down the bottle. Outside this room, he gets furious at everything and it’s terrifying to watch. One day, I’m sure he’ll walk in with those storms in his eyes and clenched fists, and it won’t be the day I turn him away. He knows I’ll do anything for him, there’s no doubt in my mind, and he’ll try to test it eventually.

He takes my fingers with little complaint, and I’d praise him if he would let me. It has been made abundantly clear that he isn’t here for tenderness and care. He needs this, he needs it to hurt, ache. I’ve stopped questioning him.

Charles says something else into the pillow that I can’t make out, but I figure it’s some admonishment, telling me to get a move on. I choose not to argue, and use my free hand to pop the buttons on my trousers. They get pushed down around my thighs, because getting undressed is far too intimate for what we do here.

He groans and I hold my breath as I slowly ease my way into him. I dig my fingers into his hips, hoping that there will be marks there for him to see even after he’s tried to convince himself he didn’t want this. In another life, with another version of Charles, I could kiss up the length of his throat, over his broad shoulders, down his spine. I could do this and still look him in the face. I could do a dozen things that I could never dream of doing here. I don’t know if the thought stings, or if it fills me with an odd relief. They’ve started to feel the same.

“Fucking _move_.” His head lifts from the pillow to hiss at me, turned just enough so I can see one narrowed eye between the curls fanned over his face.

I suppose I was never really in control here, no matter how masterfully I managed to fool myself. This is my room, this is my apartment, and this is my cock in him, but I have never been the one calling the shots. It was always him. And I oblige when he orders, snapping my hips forward.

It knocks a moan out of him, jostling him forward. He curls his hands into fists, gripping the sheets so hard his knuckles are white. I take that as a sign to continue with that rhythm. One hand goes to thread into his hair, and I tug, already prepared for the sharp complaint he’ll give. None comes. He tilts his head into it, taking a trembling breath, and that petulant need in me is satisfied.

Charles never cries. I could put him through hell here, and he won’t shed a tear. He’ll grit his teeth and tell me to keep going, to stop holding back. I don’t know if I ever truly want him to, or if I just want some fucking sign that he feels something here. I wonder if he’s withholding it on purpose, knowing just how desperately I need it.

I pull his hips up, struggling with the dead weight beneath me. He seems to catch on eventually, struggling to his knees as I ease myself between them. I slip a hand up his spine, raking my nails across his skin and pressing his chest into the bed. I can wrap a hand around his cock here, and he moans, soft and breathy. 

It always becomes this.The sooner he gets off, the sooner I can set up camp on the sofa. My want doesn’t matter, not to him, not to me anymore either. My thoughts have run in dizzy circles, taking myself through that same cycle of hope, where I try to convince myself that this is something close to love, and then crush myself by admitting I know it isn’t. I’m tired, so fucking tired of all of this.

He’s speaking again, halting little half-sentences that don’t make any sense, none that I can find anyway. His voice is high, soft, the softest I’ve ever heard it. I want him to say my name like that, like he needs me and he cares. But it isn’t my name I hear.

“‘Milla. Please.”

I grit my teeth. I fuck him harder. I don’t want to hear him say anything anymore.

Camilla shouldn’t be here. Charles shouldn’t really be here either. The Macaulay twins are crawling into every piece of me, breaking me apart like rotten wood, and all I can do is sit through it and let them keep taking. I can’t stop either of them. I know I don’t want to.

He says her name once more, reverent, like the golden hush of a hymn, before he cums. I pull away too quick, as if burned by his skin, and watch his knees give out. He slips to lay flat. He’s still trying to catch his breath, he doesn’t seem to care much that he’s been left there. I think he would be hurt more if I tried to offer him anything resembling tenderness. He has what he wanted, he doesn’t need me anymore. But that doesn’t stop me from going to the bathroom and fetching a damp cloth.

Turning him onto his stomach is a challenge, and he seems intent on fighting me the whole way through. He’s slurring his protests, and I ignore them, wiping over his stomach and pulling his briefs back up. This is all he will allow me, and this is all I will allow myself. This is the closest I can get to worshipping at this altar, and I will savour it while I have the chance, before he has the chance to take it away from me.

“Aspirin is by the bed.” Is my closing prayer.

I’m sure he hasn’t heard me and has fallen fast asleep, because the protests have stopped. At least, until I pull back and glance up to see him watching me, heavy-lidded, his face impassive. He opens his mouth to say something.

“Go to sleep, Charles.”

He closes his mouth. I am allowed to keep myself together. Whatever he said would’ve hurt me, I’m sure, even if there was no spite lacing his tone. I refuse to splinter apart, because Charles Macaulay has never made me cry.

**Author's Note:**

> take a shot every time i write "i wonder".


End file.
